Applying adhesive medical tape to the human body was most widely used in orthopedic medicine to support joints in the human body. The tape limited the range of motion while providing support typically, to an injured joint. Orthopedic taping has also been used to prevent injury, reduce pain and swelling, as well as provide mechanical correction of ligaments and tendons. Typical sports taping techniques will revolve around the joint region. During the process of taping there are muscles that are covered, however, there is no particular assessment involving the muscle.
There are also less traditional uses for the application of adhesive medical tape to the human body. The use of adhesive medical tape applied directly to the skin of the human body has also been claimed to be used to assist in postural support, edema control, acupressure, improving circulation, and to assist with either eliciting or inhibiting muscle tone. There have been different types of adhesive medical tape developed, including tape that has increased elasticity to address the claims previously listed. These taping methods involve the application of the tape directly to the skin.
The investigation the specific claims that any of these taping process is able to assist in either eliciting or inhibiting muscle tone is unfounded. Examinations of all these taping patterns do not reveal any specific organized pattern that would correlate with specific skeletal structures that lay beneath the tape. Elaborating on this last statement, for example, the claim that a taping pattern inhibits a muscle, the pattern of each inhibited muscle does not follow a specific pattern. A pattern is determined when it correlates with the anatomical structures underneath the tape. This is critical because the anatomy corresponds with specific physiological structures. It is the activation of the physiological structures that affect the muscle tone. Reviewing the medical literature in PubMed, these studies revealed that none of these taping patterns claiming to assist with the muscle tone have produced any effective long term results. In theory, this would be due to the nebulous taping process that is applied in these methods that resembles no particular pattern that corresponds with anatomical or physiological structures.
It would be advantageous to come up with a taping method that was able to elicit and inhibit muscle tone that was effective, and was able to produce both short and long term results. This would assist in the recovery of neurological and orthopedic injuries. It would also be advantageous to have an established known pattern that was repeatable and had predictable results. In other words it would be a true theoretical taping process. Furthermore, the taping method would be best to encompass and show efficacy in all ages of the human population that had any neurological or orthopedic disorder.